When all fish are dying
when all birds are falling from the sky
the springs slowly receding
and trees disappearing
man's life, we know, will then stop

(Warriors of the Rainbow, 1963)

WHEN the report came, Rainbow was about to return to Jakarta. At a meeting in the mess room earlier at 9am that day Captain Derek had made the decision. But the report—of three suspicious vessels lying at anchor in the waters south of Kalimantan—changed his min